ICC Cricket World Cup

First topic message reminder :

Table
England 2pts (+2.08nrr)
Afghanistan
Australia
Bangladesh
India
New Zealand
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
West Indies
South Africa 0pts (-2.08 nrr)


Pool Fixtures

Thu, May 30 
10:30 England vs South Africa  (The Oval)

Fri, May 31 
10:30 West Indies vs Pakistan (Trent Bridge)

Sat, Jun 1 
10:30 New Zealand vs Sri Lanka (Cardiff)
13:30 Afghanistan vs Australia (Bristol)

Sun, Jun 2 
10:30 South Africa vs Bangladesh (The Oval)

Mon, Jun 3 
10:30 England vs Pakistan (Trent Bridge)

Tue, Jun 4 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Sri Lanka (Cardiff)

Wed, Jun 5 
10:30 South Africa vs India (Southampton)
13:30 Bangladesh vs New Zealand (The Oval)

Thu, Jun 6 
10:30 Australia vs West Indies (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 7 
10:30 Pakistan vs Sri Lanka (Bristol)

Sat, Jun 8 
10:30 England vs Bangladesh (Cardiff)
13:30 Afghanistan vs New Zealand (Taunton)

Sun, Jun 9 
10:30 Australia vs India (The Oval)

Mon, Jun 10 
10:30 South Africa vs West Indies (Southampton)

Tue, Jun 11 
10:30 Bangladesh vs Sri Lanka (Bristol)

Wed, Jun 12 
10:30 Australia vs Pakistan (Taunton)

Thu, Jun 13 
10:30 India vs New Zealand (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 14 
10:30 England vs West Indies (Southampton)

Sat, Jun 15 
10:30 Australia vs Sri Lanka (The Oval)
13:30 Afghanistan vs South Africa (Cardiff)

Sun, Jun 16 
10:30 India vs Pakistan (Old Trafford)

Mon, Jun 17 
10:30 Bangladesh vs West Indies (Taunton)

Tue, Jun 18 
10:30 England vs Afghanistan (Old Trafford)

Wed, Jun 19 
10:30 New Zealand vs South Africa (Edgbaston)

Thu, Jun 20 
10:30 Australia vs Bangladesh (Trent Bridge)

Fri, Jun 21 
10:30 England vs Sri Lanka (Headingley)

Sat, Jun 22 
10:30 Afghanistan vs India (Southampton)
13:30 New Zealand vs West Indies (Old Trafford)

Sun, Jun 23 
10:30 Pakistan vs South Africa (Lord’s)

Mon, Jun 24 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Bangladesh (Southampton)

Tue, Jun 25 
10:30 England vs Australia (Lord’s)

Wed, Jun 26 
10:30 New Zealand vs Pakistan (Edgbaston)

Thu, Jun 27 
10:30 India vs West Indies (Old Trafford)

Fri, Jun 28 
10:30 South Africa vs Sri Lanka (Edgbaston)

Sat, Jun 29 
10:30 Afghanistan vs Pakistan (Headingley)
13:30 Australia vs New Zealand (Lord’s)

Sun, Jun 30 
10:30 England vs India (Edgbaston)

Mon, Jul 1 
10:30 Sri Lanka vs West Indies (Riverside Ground)

Tue, Jul 2 
10:30 Bangladesh vs India (Edgbaston)

Wed, Jul 3 
10:30 England vs New Zealand (Riverside Ground)

Thu, Jul 4 
10:30 Afghanistan vs West Indies (Headingley)

Fri, Jul 5 
10:30 Bangladesh vs Pakistan (Lord’s)

Sat, Jul 6 
10:30 India vs Sri Lanka (Headingley)
13:30 Australia vs South Africa (Old Trafford)




Knock Out Fixtures


To Follow

Nasser just likes to have something to say. Our fielding was the real issue against Pakistan.

Archer bowling serious heat here

Good timing for the tennis to finish just in time for me to get back and see Archer make the first incision...

That was a beauty !

alfie wrote:Good timing for the tennis to finish just in time for me to get back and see Archer make the first incision...

That was a beauty !

Anyone else notice that ball went for six? Hit the top of off stump and went all the way!

Absolute worldie from Jofra. If Bangladesh are going to trouble England, it probably has to be this partnership which makes the most headway.

Afghanistan 84/4 in the other game. Doesn't look like New Zealand will be too worried.

Duty281 wrote:Absolute worldie from Jofra. If Bangladesh are going to trouble England, it probably has to be this partnership which makes the most headway.

Afghanistan 84/4 in the other game. Doesn't look like New Zealand will be too worried.

They won't be happy that it's raining now...but I don't think it will be a long delay.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

alfie wrote:Good timing for the tennis to finish just in time for me to get back and see Archer make the first incision...

That was a beauty !

Anyone else notice that ball went for six? Hit the top of off stump and went all the way!

Yes he's getting "good carry" , you might say

Archer really enjoying bowling with a brisk breeze behind him. He probably feels he has a bit to prove today after what was , to be honest , a pretty ordinary display against Pakistan. He's made a good start...

Pretty lively attack for England today with Archer and Wood both hitting 150 k... Might have to watch the over rate though ; don't want Morgan getting suspended .
Bangladesh battling away stoutly , only two down. RRR is a tall order though . They're not getting near 387.

Eng planned the game away from spin friendly.....and BD supporter friendly venues in England
and created a flat belter....and murdered their mediocre blunt attack

BD aught to set a target of 300 for themselves and play to achieve it instead of trying to win and get bowled out for 250
......so that the NRR damage is not big......and how they are going....I think they have the batting resources to achieve 300 and that won't be a complete washout for their prospects of finishing 5th or 6th

KP_fan wrote:Eng planned the game away from spin friendly.....and  BD supporter friendly venues in England
and created a flat belter....and murdered their mediocre blunt attack

You realise the ICC control the schedule and pitch curation for this KP_F, right?

Rashid still doesn't look quite right to me. He must be fit else they'd have played Dawson. But he just isn't offering the threat he was generally providing before he picked up those niggles.

That should ensure him a five for

alfie wrote:Rashid still doesn't look quite right to me. He must be fit else they'd have played Dawson. But he just isn't offering the threat he was generally providing before he picked up those niggles.

That should ensure him a five for

I don’t think he’s bowling badly, might just be lacking a touch of rhythm to me - of course we don’t know about the shoulder properly...

They're making a decent fist of this. RRR still just below 10, which makes it manageable. Still expect them to fall at least 50 short, mind.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

KP_fan wrote:Eng planned the game away from spin friendly.....and  BD supporter friendly venues in England
and created a flat belter....and murdered their mediocre blunt attack

You realise the ICC control the schedule and pitch curation for this KP_F, right?

Don't let those pesky facts get in the way of a good conspiracy theory.

0/39 off five. Not really troubling them . I think it is still bothering him and that's affecting his revs and flight . Of course these fellows play spin pretty well , to be fair.
England need to bowl a bit of spin or the over rate will get away from them. Might see a bit of Root ?

Bangladesh actually batting quite well for all the England pace : not that far behind what England were at the same stage. Asking a lot to accelerate the way England did though.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

KP_fan wrote:Eng planned the game away from spin friendly.....and  BD supporter friendly venues in England
and created a flat belter....and murdered their mediocre blunt attack

You realise the ICC control the schedule and pitch curation for this KP_F, right?

so you are saying that the venue at the western coastal end of England.....220kms far from London got juts randomly assigned

KP_fan wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

KP_fan wrote:Eng planned the game away from spin friendly.....and  BD supporter friendly venues in England
and created a flat belter....and murdered their mediocre blunt attack

You realise the ICC control the schedule and pitch curation for this KP_F, right?

so you are saying that the venue at the western coastal end of England.....220kms far from London got juts randomly assigned

Yeah, it was a green top like this for the Sri Lanka/NZ game.

And England can breathe as they break this partnership. Similar dismissal to Bairstow's.

Plunkett does what he generally does... Grabs the breakthrough when it's needed in these middle overs...

Good bit of bowling - and a very nice catch from Roy who's having a markedly better day than the Pakistan game

And one brings two.

And the new batsman falls immediately to Rashid courtesy of a neat catch behind for Jonny ...that will be a relief to Rashid who must have been wondering where his next wicket was coming from.

A tough business chasing 386. Shakib is playing beautifully but it's still getting away from them...

KP_fan wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

KP_fan wrote:Eng planned the game away from spin friendly.....and  BD supporter friendly venues in England
and created a flat belter....and murdered their mediocre blunt attack

You realise the ICC control the schedule and pitch curation for this KP_F, right?

so you are saying that the venue at the western coastal end of England.....220kms far from London got juts randomly assigned

Well somebody had to play at Cardiff ! You think Bangladesh would have preferred , what ?..Durham ?

KP_fan wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

KP_fan wrote:Eng planned the game away from spin friendly.....and  BD supporter friendly venues in England
and created a flat belter....and murdered their mediocre blunt attack

You realise the ICC control the schedule and pitch curation for this KP_F, right?

so you are saying that the venue at the western coastal end of England.....220kms far from London got juts randomly assigned

If this was some form of conspiracy, why are they playing India in Birmingham later in the tournament?

Don't fall for KP Fan's subtle trolling. This sort of thing and awarding Australia, England's greatest rivals, world number one status. All designed to rile the majority England supporters on here

Salute for Shakib

Truly excellent hundred . Glad I stayed for that ; but getting late here and I reckon England have this so will leave it to Olly and Duty to see them home...

Goodnight everyone...

Troll of the day though was the BBC comment that wanted Stokes dropped for "a proper batsman" after today's completely inconsequential low score

Shakib goes for a marvellous 121, real champion player.

Ball crashes into the stumps again and the zing bails don’t move...

Good, comfortable win, much needed after Monday's effort.

VTR wrote:Don't fall for KP Fan's subtle trolling. This sort of thing and awarding Australia, England's greatest rivals, world number one status. All designed to rile the majority England supporters on here

And his lack of geographical knowledge. Try telling natives of Cardiff they are In West England


Good win for England.

Good for England to get another win against a potential banana skin.

Also good to see Roy have a top game after a poor one against Pakistan.

king_carlos wrote:Good for England to get another win against a potential banana skin.

Also good to see Roy have a top game after a poor one against Pakistan.

Best innings I have seen from Roy. Until his last few balls he was playing sensibly yet quickly, treating each ball on it's merit. He got slightly excited at the end.

Hope injury to Buttler is not too serious.

West Indies next (I think). Hopefully we can get through the first 10 overs more successfully than Pakistan and Aus did.

I said it earlier, if England batted first, they most certainly were going to make 350 pluss and that Bangladesh would have no chance whatsoever. Bangladesh had an opportunity to play to their strength, set a target and try to defend, on a flat road their mediocre bowling unit had absolutely nothing to hope for against England's power batting, and this time Jason Roy led the charge for England with handy contributions from others. 386 was never within the range of the Bangladesh batting lineup, and though led by their talisman they put up a fight of sorts, they were never in it after first 4 overs of the game when Roy and Bairstow were just getting used to the conditions before taking off!
It certainly would be the toughest game for the Bangladesh team, the only opportunity for them was to win the toss and bat first, they won the toss alright and fell for the stupidity of conventional wisdom...

Was looking forward to Afghanistan in this WC. They have disappointed so far though, there is no thinking behind their batting, just comes out and play like a Sunday village game though they have a bowling attack that can potentially be world class. But the bowling attack has no chance with this batting unit. Think they should try and arrange as many test matchs over the next couple of years after the World Cup is done. They really need to get used to the idea of batting long. Their sense of time need to seriously grow from that of a T-20.

VTR wrote:Don't fall for KP Fan's subtle trolling. This sort of thing and awarding Australia, England's greatest rivals, world number one status. All designed to rile the majority England supporters on here

Ha ha
Designed by Russians to Hijack american elections

Missed today's game...Moeen dropped instead of Rashid speaks volumes about where the faith lies. Also brave from England to trust their wicket takers over containers and their bats to trust themselves to score bigger than should be needed against Bangladesh.
Returning to the unconservative approach maybe paid off ...a pretty big win that was rarely in doubt judging from the scorecard.
A welcome return to normal. Doing it against the top 4 is the next step.

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

KP_fan wrote:

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

KP_fan wrote:Eng planned the game away from spin friendly.....and  BD supporter friendly venues in England
and created a flat belter....and murdered their mediocre blunt attack

You realise the ICC control the schedule and pitch curation for this KP_F, right?

so you are saying that the venue at the western coastal end of England.....220kms far from London got juts randomly assigned

If this was some form of conspiracy, why are they playing India in Birmingham later in the tournament?

It's not a conspiracy but quite an open fact that the BIG boards and home sides get preferential treatment in many ways such as.......

1-Its openly published the entire world cup schedule was turned around to accommodate BCCI's late "directive" to ICC of at least 15 days gap between end of IPL and and start of their world cup so Ind was playing her first game when SA their third.
and the IPL finishing date itself was delayed rather late in the day due to India's internal reasons

2- 7 of 8 D/N games are involving Aus or NZ

3- All of India's big games are where the Asian population is huge such as London, Birmingham, Manchester

4-Home team gets venues & pitches to their liking especially against sides whose boards are weak.


On the game itself.......as I said earlier Eng's win was foregone.....but BD did well too show that they would be in the game with even a 300 chase.
They should have batted more carefully to try and cross 300....and bowled a bit more strategically to restrict Eng to 350ish.....thereby keeping the margin of defeat to around 50 or 60 odd.

Plunkett did himself some favours again today. Good cameo with the bat and control with the ball. He bowled some absolute dross at the start of the season but he's now bowling like the experience head England need him to be. Morgan tends to turn to him at key moments so it'd be good if he can keep up the form.

The team against the Windies at the Rose Bowl will be interesting. England will be desperate for Buttler to be fit for that one, particularly with how well he hooks the quicks. Main question is whether Moeen will come back in? Personally I think he will come in for Wood against the Windies.

Against Afghanistan I expect we'll see some rotation with Dawson, Vince and Curran waiting to play. Perhaps the game where Rashid will get to rest his shoulder as well.

The BIG game as Aus start as slight favorites

India's weakness would be as noted oft earlier.....the lack of batting depth would be exposed if required to chase 300+

I think both team will goo unchanged, although I believe Lyon would be a much better choice than Zampa as Aus's only spinner

As for today, think both batting lineups have limitations. Australian lower order is capable of holding a bat for sure, but their batting unit lacks consistency beyond Smith and Warner. Even the skipper is been very hit or miss in recent times.
As for India, there are the openers though Dhawan's been struggling a bit of late, and then there is of course Virat Kohli. MS Dhoni is still a force in international cricket. But beyond that, there is not that assurance with Rahul, and to a lesser extend Jadhav and Pandya. Bhuvi is a decent bet for a number 9 though he will have to bat 8 here, and beyond that it is non-existent with Bumrah belonging to the great league of number 11s along with Chris The Fantom Martin and the one and only Cortney The Great!
As KPF mentioned, this lower order vulnerability can be seriously disadvantageous if they end up chasing 300 plus.

I'm not sure Australias tail is that much better than Indias, depending a bit on how much both side edge toward the ball rounders vs best wicket takers.
Zampa is there to make sure they have a veggie and the ball spinning both ways, the same combination England use with Rashid Moeen....neither of whome are great bowlers but who work well in tandem.
I'm not entirely convinced by Zampas selection either though and sometimes just picking your best players and to hell with combinations balance etc. India are rguably more daring in that direction.
Lyon is also a but better with the bat.
That NCN innings the other day was so much of an outlier its given a false impression of batting depth to Aus. He still averages in the teens (possibly ...not fact checked!). Stoinis and Maxwell are not exactly Stokes and Buttler class.

Couple of absolute batting legends in Smith and Kholi going up against each other but surely this games going to be about those front line bowlers.
Could well be fairly low scoring ..I certainly dont expect whoever's goes first to bat like the west indies and shoot for the moon. Get something to bowl at and trust your strength.

Who ever wins should feel pretty secure on qualification. Big rivalry and a meaningful game in terms of the tournament, let's hope it's as tight as expected and gives something worth watching.

Still waiting for a game that's both close and full of quality play rather than two teams competing to make the least terrible shots and fielding errors.

Just responding to Goose's post further up, I believe Moeen was absent yesterday to attend the birth of his child. I think he was set to play and Rashid would have been left out. I didn't follow the start of the match, so others might be able to confirm

VTR wrote:Just responding to Goose's post further up, I believe Moeen was absent yesterday to attend the birth of his child. I think he was set to play and Rashid would have been left out. I didn't follow the start of the match, so others might be able to confirm

No it was confirmed it wasn’t due to the child thing, albeit that might factor into the West Indies game as Moeen’s wife is due this week!

Think they wanted only one spinner at Cardiff due to the ground dimensions

Today's game may sound like a heavyweight one, but really it's a match between two teams guaranteed to make the semi-finals and effectively a dead rubber. The only real interest in this contest is that the winners will have a strong chance of finishing 1st in the group phase, meaning a somewhat easier semi-final would await them against New Zealand or Pakistan.

msp83 wrote:As for today, think both batting lineups have limitations. Australian lower order is capable of holding a bat for sure, but their batting unit lacks consistency beyond Smith and Warner. Even the skipper is been very hit or miss in recent times.
As for India, there are the openers though Dhawan's been struggling a bit of late, and then there is of course Virat Kohli. MS Dhoni is still a force in international cricket. But beyond that, there is not that assurance with Rahul, and to a lesser extend Jadhav and Pandya. Bhuvi is a decent bet for a number 9 though he will have to bat 8 here, and beyond that it is non-existent with Bumrah belonging to the great league of number 11s along with Chris The Fantom Martin and the one and only  Cortney The Great!
As KPF mentioned, this lower order vulnerability can be seriously disadvantageous if they end up chasing 300 plus.

Sub-Plots for me
-Hope Dhwan comes thru with some runs....though he showed signs fo coming back to form in our last ODI series which was also against Aus
-Kohli will deliver a single handed chase ( or possibly two) somewhere during this tournament, hope we can win without it & that magic inning of Kohli is reserved for knock-out games
-I am not a big Dhoni fan but I believe he will make a huge impact for India this time....as our game is built around 2.5 spinners and Dhoni is the most sound WK India's ever had to spinners.......no less than Kirmani and better than More/Mongia.
and if the tournament continues to be low / mid scores.....his slow scoring 30s / 40s and 50s would be valuable

and Bhuvi bats at 8 ( not no. 9) so imagine our batting if we were to play Shami instead of Bhuvi
I think Shami will be given a game when we play Afg/ lanka OR if we encounter a seaming pitch then in place of Kuldeep,

Good Golly I'm Olly wrote:

VTR wrote:Just responding to Goose's post further up, I believe Moeen was absent yesterday to attend the birth of his child. I think he was set to play and Rashid would have been left out. I didn't follow the start of the match, so others might be able to confirm

No it was confirmed it wasn’t due to the child thing, albeit that might factor into the West Indies game as Moeen’s wife is due this week!

Think they wanted only one spinner at Cardiff due to the ground dimensions

Yeah. A couple of guys on TV and radio had admitted they just assumed Rashid was being left out. Morgan stated that he is the No1 spinner for us in this format and was always playing. Of course that could be something said to provide support for the Yorkie.

Makes sense, that's what you get for half-following a match! And of course it's always good for Moeen to be reassured he's not the number one spinner

India bat first against Australia, strangely a used pitch for this heavyweight contest. Both sides unchanged

We don't have to chase and that's 25% battle won
275 would be a fighting, tight defendable total
And 300 nice to have comfortable situation

Pretty sluggish start but they're ticking over now...

Zampa going for a few - and not surprising as he's bowled a fair proportion of rubbish in this first couple of overs.

KP_fan reckons 275 will do him...I fancy they'd need 300 to feel confident. But it's early yet...